Somebody turn off the Fast Forward button!!

Hey everyone! Wow, it has been a while since i've been able to catch my breath! I have just been on the go these past few weeks!! So we got to Cape Town last week and I just love it!! It is so beautiful here! So far, I have been staying at a homestay with an adorable family for the last week! They are seriously so wonderful! Their names are Nallie, Trever, Jessie (boy,23), Lisa (girl, 16), and Adam (boy, 15). This family has opened up their home to us so that we can get a little taste of what it is like to live the way they do. They live in town called, "Ocean View" and they leave very simply. I am paired living their with my friend, Daniele, and we already feel like kids in the family. It has been great to talk with them about their way of life and compare and contrast it to ours. They live in a coloured community and are coloureds themselves. I have been informed that they classify themselves as "coloured" people and do not take offense to that title!! They are also not categorized with blacks either. I have learned so much about the history of South Africa and have had the chance to pick at their experiences since being here. I had never known about "District 6" which happened about 30 or 40 years ago, when the government forced all the people leaving in District 6 out because they wanted to use it for something else and develop it because it was a township. My house dad, Trever, has taken us around Cape Town and has pointed out all the places that were whites only and coloureds only and blacks only. There were also designated beaches and shops that they were allowed to go into. It has just amazed me with how far they've come today with all the changes.

My family has been treating us so well and serve us coffee and tea about 10 times a day no joke! They are constantly feeding us and in order to not be rude, we must eat. hahaha. But the good thing is that the food is delicious and Nallie can cook beautifully! Last night, Nallie told me her testimony to becoming a christian and it was so powerful. She was originally Muslim and started dating Trever in highschool. Trever was a christian and as they got more serious in their relationship and were thinking of marriage, trever told nallie that he would convert to muslim. Nallie felt uneasy about this for she felt that trever was a "better" christian than she was as a muslim. So she made the hard choice to convert but this had a huge toll on her relationship with her family. I didn't know that if you convert from being a muslim, your family will shun you and the person who converts will become "dead" to them. This is exactly what happened... Nallie and Trever told her famly and they shunned her immediately. But before she were to become a full on christian, she wanted to make sure her heart was right... And not just become a christian in order to marry trever. So she said she remembered getting down on her knees and just praying to God and I cannot give this all justice as I am writing it on here, but it was so beautiful and this whole story brought tears to my eyes! Since then, God has provided people in their lives who have taken the place of her famliy who have shunned her and she says that she is so happy that God had filled that emptiness and she is so happy!! Nallie has so much strength and I was glad to learn so much about her life last night and of how she became a christian!!

This week we have been taking classes and touring Cape Town. Today we went on a tour around a Township called, "landa" and ate at this meat place. Tomorrow we are taking a Fairy to Robin Island all day. Friday we have class/lecture, and on Saturday we are climbing Table Mountain!! woop woop! 2 weeks are left from today until we take a plane back to the states! I am enjoying everything so much and absolutely love it here! Yesterday, me and a few friends went to the ocean and ran along it and basked in the beauty of this place!! God blessed Cape Town with so much beauty and I am trying to soak it all up in 2 weeks!! If I have time, I will go to an internet cafe to upload some pictures, However, at the moment I am at a Bible Institute (college campus) that has like zero internet! haha So if I don't get to it, i'll put them up when I'm in the states!!

love and miss you all!! Take care :)